Allura and the Paladins
by rebornlover
Summary: The paladins learn more about their commander-in-chief and Hunk hosts an Altean celebration.
1. Chapter 1

It hadn't really occurred to any of the paladins to think about Allura's relationship with their Predecessors. When they had first gotten to Arus and met the princess they'd all been a bit distracted, understandably, by their alien pursuers and the giant mechanical lion robot thing. And almost immediately after, they had become the new paladins and were trying to assemble the rest of the lions and figure out how to form Voltron.

During all the chaos, it had been hard to wrap their minds around their own situations let alone the elf-like princess who'd lost almost all remnants of her home world. After the initial attack things cooled down a little and they'd all learned a bit more about each other. For example, the rest of the guys learned that Pidge was extremely strict about his privacy and modesty. No one was allowed into the room he'd been given in the castle under pain of death and he never took his shirt off in the training room. Keith on the other hand, seemed to have no real concept of a divide between his room and the rest of the Castle. Allura often found his jacket or shirt or even his training uniform lying around in the rooms next to his (and on one memorable occasion in the kitchen sink) and he almost never had his door closed completely, as if he took comfort in being able to hear the rest of them coming and going. And the paladins learned that sometimes, very rarely, when she was tired or frustrated, or much more rarely, really happy, Allura would call Pidge, Keith and Lance by the wrong names.

Not each other's names mind you, despite being introduced to all of them in the five-minute period between waking up and sending them out to find the lions, Allura never ever got their names confused. No, the names that she would call them in those moments of high emotion always sounded Altean (or at least this was the assumed thread among the boys, Altea being their only real cultural touchpoint out in space by proxy of Allura and Coran), and when she noticed her mistake (and she did notice, every time) she always looked sad.

So sad that for the most part the boys tried to brush it off, afraid that they would bring up painful memories for their leader, though they all discussed their pet theories for who the names might belong to and why Hunk and Shiro were exempt. Eventually, however, Lance's curiosity and Hunk's concern got the better of them and they approached Coran about the names.

'How can I help you boys?' They'd managed to catch-up to the mustachioed Altean in the launch bay for the lions. He continued working on the console, monitoring the diagnostics on the Black Lion, even as they sat cross-legged on the floor in front of him.

They glanced at each other, not sure where to begin.

'Well, Coran, we were wondering if Allura had a lot of family on Altea, besides her father that is,' Lance's voice was uncertain, though he tried as best as he could to pull off his usual nonchalance.

'Oh, the princess had a huge family on her mother's side,' Coran didn't seem to find anything suspicious though, 'her father was an only child, but the Queen was the middle child of nine siblings.'

This seemed like a productive lead so Hunk nudged Lance slightly and nodded at him to continue.

'So Allura was close to the rest of her family as well?'

"Oh yes, she spent every summer at the matrilineal estate. She and her cousins were in and out of each others' pockets all Doodle-berry season, running around and getting into adventures.'

'That sounds nice,' Hunk wasn't sure if either of the Alteans had ever mentioned Doodle-berry season to him before, but he filed it away to ask about later. 'Was one of them called Reyna?'

This got Coran's attention. He stared at them for a moment, his gloved hands hovering above the translucent screen in front of him. Hunk was struck by the expression on his face; while talking about Allura's family (and for that matter most of the time) Coran wore a small, happy smile. Coran managed to gather himself together quickly enough, but for just a moment the jovial advisor looked absolutely devastated.

'No.' He sighed deeply and moved to sit on the floor in front of them. His face was just blank now, it was better than the despair from before, but only slightly. Hunk and Lance glanced at each other and then back to Coran, hoping that he would break the silence without prompting from either of them. As the silence stretched on, however, Hunk took the risk of prompting him softly. Reaching out softly, he tapped Coran's knee softly and then withdrew his warm brown hand. Coran looked up at him and then back at his knees but he started to talk softly.

'Lieutenant Reyna was the original paladin of the Blue Lion.' Lance started visibly at this, sitting up straight and dropping his hands from where they were folded in front of him so that they rested on his knees. Hunk was just as surprised.

'Oh,' he thought back to the names she called the others. 'Was she close to the other paladins?'

Coran let out a small huff of laughter though it didn't sound very much like he found anything funny. 'Close is a bit of an understatement, the original paladins regarded the Princess and King Alfor as family, when she wasn't spending time at the estate, or the palace, she was under their feet somewhere. In and out of their wives' laps, playing with their children.'

He stopped for a moment and reached up to stroke his vibrant moustache. 'I think that I have the picture of all of us together, somewhere.'

He glanced up at Lance who still looked slightly stunned. 'Allura called you Reyna?'

Lance blinked slowly and then opened his mouth and hesitate, working through the shock. 'Uh… yeah, a couple of times.'

Coran nodded his head, and then asked even more quietly, 'And the others?'

Hunk took over at this point. 'We've noticed that she slipped up a few times with Pidge and Keith. Never with me and Shiro though, or at least not that we noticed.'

This didn't seem to surprise Coran, 'No, King Alfor was the original Yellow Paladin. She would never make that mistake.'

Hunk took the time to adjust to the knowledge that he'd quite literally stepped into Allura's father's shoes, but it didn't escape his notice that Coran made no move to explain who the original Black Paladin had been. Glancing at Lance who was looking at him with wide eyes, clearly lost for the next move, he decided that now was probably a good time to stop the conversation for the day. Coran was looking slightly drained and haunted.

It was easy for the rest of them to forget sometimes that apart from the King's hologram, Coran and Allura were literally all each other had left in the word to remind them of an entire society that was destroyed. Now, however, it was occurring to him that this was because both spent a lot of energy trying to be present for both the Paladins and the rest of the Universe. It wasn't exactly like either of them could take a year off to mourn or anything, but, maybe he and the others could do something to help anyway.


	2. Chapter 2

Allura was having, quite frankly, a horrible week. Not only had the Galra managed to invade the Castle, but their meddling resulted in the destruction of her father's hologram. To say she was devastated was an incredible understatement. She'd been prone to crying fits yesterday and most of the morning. She hated that she couldn't stop crying, that she was showing weakness to the Paladins and delaying their mission, but it was just so hard. Waking up after what had felt like a single night and realizing that not only her father and the other remaining paladins but every person on Altea and Arus was dead? Worse even, murdered by a traitor so long ago that nothing left of her people and their culture still existed in the wider galaxy. It was one of the hardest things in her life to move forward, and her father's hologram had been the one good thing that allowed her to keep it together.

Coran was doing the best he could, and it was so, so good to have him (especially now) but it wasn't the same as having her father to talk to. Having to destroy the hologram had broken something inside of her and now she was unsure that she would ever be whole again.

From her position under the covers in her darkened room, she reached out a hand to pull a tissue from the box on her bedside table. She hadn't been in the mood to tie her hair up when Coran carried her up to bed yesterday and she was sure that her hair would be hell to comb through when she could finally work up the energy to deal with it. Her eyes were undoubtedly red and swollen and her throat ached so much she was slightly worried that she might also be sick on top of everything else.

So, of course, this is when she heard the knock on her door. Groaning softly, she rolled over so that she was facing away from the door and pulled her legs up so that she formed a nice safe ball under the covers. The knock came again and then very softly the door started to open. As far as she knew none of the Paladins even knew where her room was, and so she assumed that this must be Coran, here to urge her to eat something. Her stomach felt hollow though, she hadn't been hungry this morning and she wasn't hungry now.

'Coran, I'm not hungry,' her voice was muffled under the cover. 'Please go away.'

'Princess?', that wasn't Coran's voice. She turned slightly and peeked out of her cocoon. There to the right of her bed, standing with his hands clasped low in front of him, was Hunk.

The surprise of this was enough to prompt her to sit up. She could imagine, if push came to shove, the other paladins coming in here to get her up. If the Galra were spotted maybe, or she'd gone a dangerous amount of time without sustenance; but she would have been hard pressed to ever imagine the circumstances that would prompt kind, nervous Hunk into her room without her express permission. She didn't say anything, waiting for him to inform her what he needed.

He took a deep breath, 'Princess, I know that right now you're going through a really rough time. I'm not going to say that I know what you're going through because I never liked it being said to me, but I made something for you and I really hope it will help.'

Allura wiped at some of the tears that had begun flowing down her face again and took a minute to think about this. She realized that she didn't really know a lot about Hunk, other than what she saw on missions or during training, he kept to the kitchen a lot and she knew that sometimes when you walked into the room and he hadn't yet noticed you could hear him humming a sweet tune but that was basically it. She didn't have any idea what he could have made her or why he thought it would help but it was enough to make her curious. She nodded her head silently and waded to the right side of the large bed. Hunk turned to give her some privacy as she slipped out from under the covers and walked over to the dressing gown thrown over the door of her closet.

She cleared her sore throat to get him to turn around and gestured for him to take the lead. He nodded back and gave her a small smile before heading towards the door. Allura followed him through the castle corridors, keeping an eye out for the other paladins or Coran. While she had little doubt that at least one of the others was involved in whatever this was, she was unsure she could handle interacting with anyone other than Hunk right now. He seemed to be leading her in the direction of the great dining hall, another area of the Castle she wouldn't have expected the Paladins to know about. Finally, he stopped outside the great wooden doors and taking another deep breath, he pushed the doors open. He stepped aside and waved her into the room. She stepped inside, turning slowly around to look at every aspect the room. She felt the tears start to fall again.

There were strings of lights hung around the banisters in the room, and bowls of Doodle berries resting on every flat surface. The chairs in the room were all covered in long cloths the deep, royal, purple of the doodle berry and the castle computer was playing a sweet lilting melody that her mother had liked to hum as she was dressing Allura for the festival. On the central table, there was a large assortment of pastries and larger dishes, all of which, according to tradition would contain Doodle-berries. He'd managed to recreate, down to the smallest detail, a Doodle-berry feast.

The great dining room, when the rest of the castle was still in use on Altea, had been used mostly to host large galas and events. Allura and her cousins spent most of the major holidays of their youth running around the room, dressed up in finery and dodging the ankles of dignitaries. As she looked around at the glittering lights strung up around the room she was transported back to the first time she watched her mother spinning around the room in her father's arms. They'd looked ethereal from where she sat at the head table, laughing and cooing at each other as the citizens of Altea spun around them. Stumbling forward to a chair she sank down and rested her head in her hands on the table, trying to stop another sobbing session.

She expected Hunk to panic at this, as he was wont to do when they encountered something he convinced himself he couldn't handle, but he just quietly pulled up a seat beside her and made soothing noises as he carefully patted her back. He waited patiently while she got this latest crying jag out of her system and then scooted back out of her personal space as she gathered herself.

'You couldn't have done all of this in the two days since, since…' her voice faded out as she worked to keep from crying again. She was getting light-headed.

'No,' he agreed softly, looking around at his handy-work. 'Coran has been coaching me through the recipes for the last few weeks, and the guys helped us look through the storage rooms for the decorations.'

'Coran always loved this feast the most,' she sniffed noisily, noting that this meant he'd been planning this without her knowledge for some time. 'My parents liked all the holidays really, any opportunity they could get to gather with the people.'

Hunk nodded at this. He turned so that he was facing the table, and she was in his peripheral vision. 'I've never really told anyone but Lance this, but I lost my mother a few years ago.'

'She was one of the most beautiful women on the island. Her hair was a really dark brown, and her eyes were this beautiful hazelnut. Her skin was slightly darker than mine and the sun used to shine off it when she was in the garden.' He kept his voice even and calm.

'The entire year after she died, it felt like my world ended. Then on the day of her birthday, my father woke me up and he'd prepared all of her favorite foods and he was playing this song she loved.'

Here he started to choke on his words a bit. 'When I asked him, how he could arrange something like that when I knew how much he missed her, he said that it was because he missed her so much. That it was in celebrating the things she loved and the life she lived that we honored the time she spent with us.'

Allura was watching him as he told this story. She'd come to rely on all the Paladins since waking up in the pod, and every time they went through some new misadventure together she became more and more sure that the Blue lion had chosen correctly in bringing them to the Castle. Hunk had already proven himself as a Paladin but now she was certain that her father could not have a worthier successor.

She was surprised to note that she didn't feel like she was on the edge of another sob fest.

'Well your father sounds like a wise man,' she begun to get up from her chair and moved to put a hand on his shoulder. 'And both of your parents raised a kind son.'

Now that the crying had stopped for a moment, she felt exhausted. She brought up a hand to her face to cover a yawn.

'I'm afraid that I'm a bit too tired to enjoy this wonderful feast, but you should call the others.' She started heading towards the door. 'The Doodle-berry feast is best enjoyed with true companions. I would be very pleased however if you could preserve some of the food for me to try later.'

She looked back at Hunk as she reached the door. He was still sitting at the table in the middle of the room, his face turned upward to stare contemplatively at the lights. When she felt better she would search through her quarters and find some old photos to share with Hunk and the others. As Paladins they deserved to know more about the legacy of the lions, and as her friends they had earned the right to know more about her as well.


End file.
